Dylan: His latest, here, starting at midnight.

David Gahr
 

You could write a boring book — or a boring blog post, for that matter — about the countless ways the decline of the music industry has affected the way we listen to music. Record stores are disappearing, MP3 downloads are replacing CDs, piracy runs rampant, label mergers have consolidated artists' catalogs into ever fewer hands, and so on.

If that paragraph hasn't caused you to nod off like a herdsman bitten by a tsetse fly, perhaps you'll join me for a moment as I lament the decline of the CD release party, that wonderful byproduct of record stores that allows like-minded fans to gather in person and hear a much-anticipated album for the first time.

What any of this nonsense has to do with Bob Dylan, after the jump ...

Like many 36-year-old music geeks, I have fond memories of gathering at a campus-area music store — usually a music-store in close proximity to Taco Bell and its much-missed 39-cent Fiesta Menu — for a midnight introduction to early-'90s albums by Public Enemy, Prince, U2 and many more.

Naturally, also like many 36-year-old music geeks, I can now appreciate the convenience of buying music online as an alternative to staying out late, sleeping in and missing work on Tuesday morning.

But there's a lot to be said for taking the act of listening to music and making it feel like an event — for sharing a bond with other fans, for venting our nervous anticipation and offering moment-by-moment spot analysis, even if it's no more insightful than "This sucks!" or "This is awesome!"

I'm hopelessly biased, and more than a little crass for bringing it up at this point, but one thing I love about NPR Music is the way we try to make listening to music an event.

You can delve into our archives and listen to concerts — in venues ranging from massive stadiums to intimate clubs, right down to the confines of Bob Boilen's desk — but you can also make an appointment to listen to those shows live as they happen, and even commiserate with friends and strangers while you do so.

And now — it's not a concert, but starting at midnight (ET) tonight, one full week before its release — you can join us to devour Bob Dylan's remarkable new album Tell Tale Signs on the NPR Music site, in its entirety.

It's the eighth entry in Dylan's Bootleg Series, all recorded between 1989 and 2006, and it spans 27 songs on two discs. You don't have to stay up late to hear it all — it'll be up for a full week — but if you do, be sure to post your thoughts at the bottom of the page.

Also, consider getting some Taco Bell takeout. It'll be the next best thing to wedging yourself into a crowd at the record store, tugging your friend's sleeve and yelling, "This is awesome!"

— Stephen Thompson

categories: Internet, Music

3:40 - September 29, 2008

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